1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:17,040 I'm sure you I'm sure you would definitely but in the form of the 2 00:00:17,040 --> 00:00:23,440 arrangement actually I have a release form for you the the thing that we're in 3 00:00:23,440 --> 00:00:32,560 in order to first ISP and there there was NSF there's DARPA and NSF and 4 00:00:32,560 --> 00:00:37,520 regionals but the idea of having the net take off for people that weren't DARPA 5 00:00:37,520 --> 00:00:42,520 contractors I thinking machines we were able to get on the DARPA net because we 6 00:00:42,520 --> 00:00:47,040 were DARPA contractors very difficult took six months of a full-time person to 7 00:00:47,040 --> 00:00:54,640 get us on the DARPA net in 1985 and it was hard as hell and but the little 8 00:00:54,640 --> 00:00:59,800 garden basically made it so that any old person and more than that not just 9 00:00:59,800 --> 00:01:04,680 themselves but the way Ben Franklin always tried to make things that weren't 10 00:01:04,680 --> 00:01:09,240 just you had to go to Ben Franklin but he made it so that you could go to other 11 00:01:09,240 --> 00:01:13,200 people and enabling other people to create their own ISPs and I don't know 12 00:01:13,200 --> 00:01:18,360 there are 400 ISPs now in the Bay Area in large part because of the little 13 00:01:18,360 --> 00:01:23,520 garden the two things that were the what was special about the little garden is no 14 00:01:23,520 --> 00:01:29,720 restriction of resale which was just basically forgotten everybody was 15 00:01:29,720 --> 00:01:32,320 concerned you know the whole place will crumble you know you'll just start 16 00:01:32,320 --> 00:01:37,440 reselling it and they'll just max out these connections and what we want to do 17 00:01:37,440 --> 00:01:40,200 is we wanted to originally it was kind of a cooperative I don't know if you 18 00:01:40,200 --> 00:01:48,480 heard that but it was what happened is John Romkey and John Gilmore and Steve 19 00:01:48,480 --> 00:01:54,400 Crocker actually with pretty much three original people and Steve Crocker is 20 00:01:54,400 --> 00:02:00,120 trusted information systems John Romkey FTP software and John Gilmore you 21 00:02:00,120 --> 00:02:03,760 probably know him through Cygnus and EFF and such and they wanted a connection 22 00:02:03,760 --> 00:02:11,200 at that point it was like $2,000 for a connection from alternate at that point 23 00:02:11,200 --> 00:02:15,720 and in order for them to be able to do like kind of like resale it was going to 24 00:02:15,720 --> 00:02:23,400 cost them $5,000 they said that's bogus for a T1 so they actually sort of they 25 00:02:23,400 --> 00:02:26,640 knew Rick Adams real well and said hey listen can we do this cooperative thing 26 00:02:26,640 --> 00:02:41,000 yeah sure and when when was this was 80 88 89 around there and Rick said yeah 27 00:02:41,000 --> 00:02:45,400 sure don't just don't let expand too much of course Gilmore being Gilmore 28 00:02:45,400 --> 00:02:51,520 said ah sure no problem well at that point he he ran a 56k up to what his his 29 00:02:51,520 --> 00:02:57,840 house called Toad Hall and he called Mia I was working with him because I wrote 30 00:02:57,840 --> 00:03:04,960 the software that hooks FIDO up FIDO net up to the internet and he said I got 31 00:03:04,960 --> 00:03:09,840 this connection we really like to be able to get more people on it and so we 32 00:03:09,840 --> 00:03:15,040 I got a copy of what was called Ke9 Q at that point which is this kind of TCIP 33 00:03:15,040 --> 00:03:20,720 software that's written by Phil Karn and we set up this little 80 88 or was it I 34 00:03:20,720 --> 00:03:23,760 think it's a 286 or something like that and put a couple serial cards in an 35 00:03:23,760 --> 00:03:28,880 Ethernet card and all ran under MS-DOS hacked it up so that my machine at home 36 00:03:28,880 --> 00:03:34,000 could call into it you know I had like another version of Ke9 Q at home and so 37 00:03:34,000 --> 00:03:38,120 we were able to start selling slip connections which was something that you 38 00:03:38,120 --> 00:03:44,120 really just didn't have the we didn't have the hardware the or the money to be 39 00:03:44,120 --> 00:03:48,080 able to do so we were making these little boxes out of $400 you know at the 40 00:03:48,080 --> 00:03:53,400 most to be able to do this so it got bigger and bigger and bigger and at that 41 00:03:53,400 --> 00:03:56,680 point we said gee we really can't manage this on our own it was supposed to be 42 00:03:56,680 --> 00:03:59,040 again it was supposed to be kind of a cooperative and not that many people 43 00:03:59,040 --> 00:04:04,800 were helping out with the co-op so we hired Governor Tom Jennings who I had 44 00:04:04,800 --> 00:04:09,800 known again from the FIDO days because I did the FIDO network and he had 45 00:04:09,800 --> 00:04:14,040 just quit Apple and he was like pissed off the corporate world and just didn't 46 00:04:14,040 --> 00:04:17,880 want to deal with that whole scene at all so he said yeah this sounds cool I 47 00:04:17,880 --> 00:04:21,200 can just sort of work this tiny little company and you know make a couple of 48 00:04:21,200 --> 00:04:26,400 bucks and you know do my skateboarding and all that other stuff and we gave him 49 00:04:26,400 --> 00:04:31,160 a cut of how much people would do you know pay into this thing it's like ten 50 00:04:31,160 --> 00:04:38,080 bucks per person who plugged in and it got bigger and bigger and bigger and 51 00:04:38,080 --> 00:04:42,440 bigger like how many people actually had slip accounts at that point from you 52 00:04:42,440 --> 00:04:48,960 guys this at Toad Hall what happened is we outstripped the NOS boxes we had 53 00:04:48,960 --> 00:04:53,400 about probably about six NOS boxes each with four serial cards into them so 54 00:04:53,400 --> 00:04:57,640 there's about 24 lines that were going into to John's place which got a little 55 00:04:57,640 --> 00:05:02,720 messy you know the the phone company guy and it was a woman as well who came in 56 00:05:02,720 --> 00:05:06,880 and said oh yeah another phone line for Toad Hall and they got to know us real 57 00:05:06,880 --> 00:05:10,680 well and we had like you know punch blocks and telephone lines going through 58 00:05:10,680 --> 00:05:15,280 his basement and the whole thing after that we we graduated to like a 59 00:05:15,280 --> 00:05:22,880 Livingston port master which does about 30 and we far outstripped John's little 60 00:05:22,880 --> 00:05:30,520 poor little 56k link so as soon as we the next step was co-locating with a 61 00:05:30,520 --> 00:05:35,320 with a company called MFS metropolitan fiber systems and where we put in a 62 00:05:35,320 --> 00:05:39,320 bunch of our equipment at 444 market and then we just moved everybody at Toad 63 00:05:39,320 --> 00:05:43,360 Hall over there and that was kind of the start of the real business we were 64 00:05:43,360 --> 00:05:47,360 actually signing three-year leases and getting really scared like gee what 65 00:05:47,360 --> 00:05:54,240 happens if our company collapses in six months but where was Toad Hall what city 66 00:05:54,240 --> 00:05:58,400 it was in the Haight Ashbury district yeah that's where John's John's place is 67 00:05:58,400 --> 00:06:03,000 but it's named after a restaurant in Palo Alto no no the little garden is 68 00:06:03,000 --> 00:06:07,440 named after a restaurant yeah oh but I mean the little garden is a later 69 00:06:07,440 --> 00:06:11,240 incarnation no the little garden was kind of the co-op and see what happens 70 00:06:11,240 --> 00:06:15,440 all of our you know Steve John and I and everybody else would meet at the little 71 00:06:15,440 --> 00:06:19,280 garden to sort of talk about how we were going to work on the net and get it 72 00:06:19,280 --> 00:06:23,920 going and do what we need to do and things like that and our last meeting 73 00:06:23,920 --> 00:06:30,080 there we basically took over the whole restaurant we just showed up and the 74 00:06:30,080 --> 00:06:33,360 people there just went what are we gonna do with all these people and so we just 75 00:06:33,360 --> 00:06:37,120 ended up all these tables so we kind of like outstripped the restaurant as well 76 00:06:37,120 --> 00:06:42,520 so but that was the name of it that's what we took it 77 00:06:42,520 --> 00:06:46,960 right the East Coast was all very stodgy you know you had to have official 78 00:06:46,960 --> 00:06:51,240 contracts and the West Coast you come out here and there's the little garden 79 00:06:51,240 --> 00:06:57,400 that was just taking over the Haight Ashbury flat to be able to get the 80 00:06:57,400 --> 00:07:01,720 internet to everybody it was just that sort of grassroots thing that the West 81 00:07:01,720 --> 00:07:05,320 Coast does beautifully I think that's why you're seeing the internet happen in 82 00:07:05,320 --> 00:07:17,360 the West Coast well we invented the PC why not the internet no I mean the home 83 00:07:17,360 --> 00:07:22,960 brew computer club and the whole and the community community memory and all this 84 00:07:22,960 --> 00:07:29,760 yeah no no I mean we you know we fell in signs and everybody else you know or are 85 00:07:29,760 --> 00:07:34,000 just involved as in this stuff as well you know he got his community memory 86 00:07:34,000 --> 00:07:37,560 stuff going and he started using this sort of infrastructure he didn't use us 87 00:07:37,560 --> 00:07:43,480 but he was using his own internet infrastructure Wired magazine their 88 00:07:43,480 --> 00:07:47,400 first connection was through us I don't know if you've talked to them and they 89 00:07:47,400 --> 00:07:56,760 mentioned that at all well Brian Bounder I know I knew Will Kretz for a little 90 00:07:56,760 --> 00:08:03,840 bit here this is before they moved this is an original 91 00:08:03,840 --> 00:08:09,960 location people brick warehouse like place they moved actually a couple more 92 00:08:09,960 --> 00:08:18,560 times after this yeah yeah they they went to us and they had one T1 that went 93 00:08:18,560 --> 00:08:22,840 into us and of course once they put up hot wire or Wired magazine wherever the 94 00:08:22,840 --> 00:08:26,320 site was originally called I can't remember but it was like just hose in 95 00:08:26,320 --> 00:08:31,720 that line that in Ayuma I don't know if you remember they went through screws 96 00:08:31,720 --> 00:08:35,520 net they connected to screws net which was one of our clients and that was 97 00:08:35,520 --> 00:08:40,680 another line that was just that was our two highest usage lines as I am and the 98 00:08:40,680 --> 00:08:44,720 Wired magazine site and finally they just kind of outstripped that and they 99 00:08:44,720 --> 00:08:51,700 connected directly into sprint what dates give some landmark dates for some 100 00:08:51,700 --> 00:08:59,840 oh jeez you moved to the city must be around 1990 I have I have actually we 101 00:08:59,840 --> 00:09:08,000 have archived all the history is the web came later than that your you did a ways 102 00:09:08,000 --> 00:09:15,720 database in your basement what was that it'd have to be 1991 because the ways 103 00:09:15,720 --> 00:09:20,740 code hadn't been put out until April of 91 and that's when you ported it to a 104 00:09:20,740 --> 00:09:25,360 PC you know what my dates me wrong yeah because I'm thinking that we've been 105 00:09:25,360 --> 00:09:30,040 doing this for about four years now it's 96 now so it must yeah it must have been 106 00:09:30,040 --> 00:09:35,200 91 92 because why it started pre web and they must have had some interest in the 107 00:09:35,200 --> 00:09:41,480 internet at that time I mean they you know I remember they had some stuff they 108 00:09:41,480 --> 00:09:50,200 had an FTP site and gopher originally I don't remember them having a website 109 00:09:50,200 --> 00:09:56,400 original I remember them moving this well that the web didn't exist when when 110 00:09:56,400 --> 00:09:59,160 they started 111 00:10:02,400 --> 00:10:10,920 why yeah I mean the web sorry it didn't exist commercially or in any well I 112 00:10:10,920 --> 00:10:17,480 mean even by 92 you could say the web existed but 91 it's gleam gleam intends 113 00:10:17,480 --> 00:10:22,880 I have some demos or whatever at high telnet 114 00:10:22,880 --> 00:10:35,320 tell that for me was one of the major turning points because that got us out 115 00:10:35,320 --> 00:10:40,360 of NCSA telnet when they did their own TCP but it allowed you to make 116 00:10:40,360 --> 00:10:45,760 applications that would run on the Mac platform and so it could get you out of 117 00:10:45,760 --> 00:10:51,240 just being unix only then you can start to get to windowing and it was quite a 118 00:10:51,240 --> 00:10:59,160 while before the PC had TCP IPs that really were they had real it's not 119 00:10:59,160 --> 00:11:03,600 usable yeah they had really expensive stacks like FTP softwares which were 120 00:11:03,600 --> 00:11:11,320 $400 PC for the stack and they made their money that way but and they had a 121 00:11:11,320 --> 00:11:15,680 really nice stable stack also it just took up a lot of TSR space and that was 122 00:11:15,680 --> 00:11:24,840 something that DOS machine just kind of handled very well there was what was the other thing there was water 123 00:11:24,840 --> 00:11:31,920 low TCP which was a stack that you could use under MS-DOS there's Phil Karnes 124 00:11:31,920 --> 00:11:35,600 thing but it was basically not a stack that you can run other things on top of 125 00:11:35,600 --> 00:11:57,160 and then there was Novell's land work place. So is it fair to say that the little garden was the first modern ISP that really helped not only itself to bring lots of users but also brought hundreds of other companies into I remember John 126 00:11:57,160 --> 00:12:01,800 during saying Brewster you know there may be three or four companies doing this 127 00:12:01,800 --> 00:12:07,200 stuff now next this time next year there will be a thousand yeah he was 128 00:12:07,200 --> 00:12:16,480 absolutely right if not low this was in 92 going from 92 to 93 there was a 129 00:12:16,480 --> 00:12:22,200 there was an internet world that the first internet world was very interesting 130 00:12:22,200 --> 00:12:26,320 to me and that the real people were there one person's comment is there are 131 00:12:26,320 --> 00:12:29,760 more CEOs in this room than anything else these are CEOs where they didn't 132 00:12:29,760 --> 00:12:35,080 have any other employees right and the booths almost all of like science 133 00:12:35,080 --> 00:12:40,640 projects you know this is you know the table with the with the tablecloth right 134 00:12:40,640 --> 00:12:44,200 the little stand-up you know this is who I am people that had printed out a 135 00:12:44,200 --> 00:12:48,400 business card because they had to name the company before they went there and 136 00:12:48,400 --> 00:12:55,320 it felt what I you know heard about the homebrew computer club and and we were 137 00:12:55,320 --> 00:13:02,240 one of the more established companies at that point this is early ways but ways 138 00:13:02,240 --> 00:13:07,280 ain't got already existed so 93 but the little garden was from my point of view 139 00:13:07,280 --> 00:13:13,440 the first that was trying to bring it outside of the research and big company 140 00:13:13,440 --> 00:13:17,760 networks at that point all the big high-tech companies had the net and 141 00:13:17,760 --> 00:13:22,960 they're all doing intranets because they were Unix the Unix based places but to 142 00:13:22,960 --> 00:13:28,440 try to get it out to the wild skateboarders and the like it took the 143 00:13:28,440 --> 00:13:33,920 little girl the companies before that well basically around that time to see 144 00:13:33,920 --> 00:13:39,240 imps the MCI no sprint wasn't around at that point they were doing they weren't 145 00:13:39,240 --> 00:13:46,160 doing internet MCI we were their first customer and first what's called 146 00:13:46,160 --> 00:13:52,940 commercial customer we got through their government division because we were 147 00:13:52,940 --> 00:13:59,840 partially NSF funded up in Portland we were the company that well indirectly 148 00:13:59,840 --> 00:14:05,200 actually rain that was one of our business partners got South Africa and a 149 00:14:05,200 --> 00:14:10,560 bunch of other companies or countries online and the NSF was sort of funding 150 00:14:10,560 --> 00:14:13,360 that to people help that happen so we were able to get sort of like 151 00:14:13,360 --> 00:14:21,160 introductions to get get connected MCI but the the companies around there was 152 00:14:21,160 --> 00:14:28,640 like the NSF sponsored regionals which were things like Barnett you know not 153 00:14:28,640 --> 00:14:42,680 BBN yeah sir nice or not a couple others but and then then the only other sort of 154 00:14:42,680 --> 00:14:49,080 like commercial net at that point was alternate or unit and they were they 155 00:14:49,080 --> 00:14:52,520 weren't interested in trying you know doing slip connections or they weren't 156 00:14:52,520 --> 00:14:58,280 interested in doing like low-speed connections that would be affordable 157 00:14:58,280 --> 00:15:06,360 yeah the dial-up idea really hadn't really occurred to people experiment and Rick Adams 158 00:15:06,360 --> 00:15:11,240 wrote the slip code you know on the Berkeley Unix so you figured you know 159 00:15:11,240 --> 00:15:16,000 he'd be one sort of like interested in pushing this no alternate was like you 160 00:15:16,000 --> 00:15:19,880 know big companies they want like you know the HP's and the apples to connect 161 00:15:19,880 --> 00:15:29,320 a lot easier to make a business based on those yes we've seen but we still wanted 162 00:15:29,320 --> 00:15:34,720 to make sure that that any Tom Dicker Harriet could plug in at a reasonable 163 00:15:34,720 --> 00:15:41,840 cost and our first prices were the way we set it up is you would buy the phone 164 00:15:41,840 --> 00:15:45,840 line on each end this is the way so this way we didn't have to incur the cost and 165 00:15:45,840 --> 00:15:50,440 billing handling everything like that and we would charge you $70 a month for a 166 00:15:50,440 --> 00:15:54,880 14-4 connection which was something that was still a little high I mean you know 167 00:15:54,880 --> 00:16:00,160 it's like two or three times what cable TV costs but we had a lot of diehards 168 00:16:00,160 --> 00:16:04,640 particularly with people who just couldn't get connected you don't have 169 00:16:04,640 --> 00:16:09,880 these $25 slip accounts you know back then and with our our connection we would 170 00:16:09,880 --> 00:16:13,200 give you an 8-bit connection so you could you had all these people who'd 171 00:16:13,200 --> 00:16:18,360 like we're like serious hackers and have like three or four maybe ten machines at 172 00:16:18,360 --> 00:16:23,240 home and put that behind that one connection now to the internet as 173 00:16:23,240 --> 00:16:27,840 opposed to today where people just are plug-in and serve this is the era when 174 00:16:27,840 --> 00:16:32,360 code was distributed on the internet in source code when we first started 175 00:16:32,360 --> 00:16:36,440 putting out ways we put it out in source code not in binaries the idea of putting 176 00:16:36,440 --> 00:16:41,840 out binaries was it was thought of as corrupt because mostly was wasting 177 00:16:41,840 --> 00:16:48,120 bandwidth I think mostly is there was this club of sys ads that their job was 178 00:16:48,120 --> 00:16:51,920 to bring things down compile them and get them to run well my issue about 179 00:16:51,920 --> 00:16:56,680 binaries is that we didn't know who compiled them and what viruses are in or what back doors and such 180 00:16:56,680 --> 00:17:02,440 so you never even you always compile from source so you can say I know what 181 00:17:02,440 --> 00:17:06,080 went in that code and I know that you know so-and-so is not gonna screw me 182 00:17:06,080 --> 00:17:12,960 over by compiling a binary and me just sort of automatically plugging into my system so that was the era and then Mosaic started 183 00:17:12,960 --> 00:17:18,360 distributing code in binary forms Mac stuff had always been distributed in 184 00:17:18,360 --> 00:17:25,160 binary but the Unix code not nearly 90s the all sources news groups are always 185 00:17:25,160 --> 00:17:44,680 bountiful and yeah and full these days it's like a desert I put out one message 186 00:17:44,680 --> 00:17:51,960 to one email list which was ways talk and about a hundred people were on that 187 00:17:51,960 --> 00:17:59,640 list at that point that there's this release alpha one of ways and and here's 188 00:17:59,640 --> 00:18:03,440 the FTP address and there are 70 databases in the directory of servers 189 00:18:03,440 --> 00:18:08,240 there's a directory servers 70 databases most of them on a connection machine 190 00:18:08,240 --> 00:18:14,760 some of them on that MIT and you could download this stuff and I just watched 191 00:18:14,760 --> 00:18:21,040 and that posting was reposted on lots of different groups and the use just 192 00:18:21,040 --> 00:18:25,680 started going first the first people were the people that were willing to 193 00:18:25,680 --> 00:18:30,600 port because that was the first thing that had to happen it ran on Sun's and 194 00:18:30,600 --> 00:18:34,480 that was about it and people ported it to everything and then people started 195 00:18:34,480 --> 00:18:39,400 setting up databases and they'd send in their their registration to be part of 196 00:18:39,400 --> 00:18:43,840 the directory of servers and it just spread in that sort of classic 197 00:18:43,840 --> 00:18:47,760 exponential approach but it was very interesting to see the freeware 198 00:18:47,760 --> 00:18:53,240 community just be alive in a well community of people saying this is cool 199 00:18:53,240 --> 00:18:57,360 it's based on open stuff it allows us to do something we've never been able to do 200 00:18:57,360 --> 00:19:04,120 before go for it and it and it just spread and the freeware community is 201 00:19:04,120 --> 00:19:07,720 still alive and well today 202 00:19:07,720 --> 00:19:14,400 Linux yes the freeware community is not corporate in that respect I guess so 203 00:19:14,400 --> 00:19:21,240 it's gotten big you have a third party yes signals huge companies now they 204 00:19:21,240 --> 00:19:27,120 were just tiny little companies that are supporting just free software yeah that's 205 00:19:27,120 --> 00:19:31,960 weird yes but it's a really needed thing because they have such great tools like 206 00:19:31,960 --> 00:19:37,360 GCC it's like one of the best compilers out there and you need something to 207 00:19:37,360 --> 00:19:41,600 support wasn't that the whole idea of the free software I mean it's not 208 00:19:41,600 --> 00:19:45,720 Richard Stallman's thing that the money to be made is from support not from the 209 00:19:45,720 --> 00:19:49,800 code right I mean that's fulfilling exactly what and that's what what 210 00:19:49,800 --> 00:19:53,880 Gilmer actually did is create a company called Cygnus and actually is making 211 00:19:53,880 --> 00:19:57,120 money off of that right now is supporting that but he's supporting 212 00:19:57,120 --> 00:20:05,320 things like people like NASA and and Sun and various other folks and also it was 213 00:20:05,320 --> 00:20:09,200 interesting and he's doing all these really the company is doing all these 214 00:20:09,200 --> 00:20:12,680 interesting little hacks and every time there's a new micro processor comes out 215 00:20:12,680 --> 00:20:17,120 that company needs a C compiler immediately and the best thing out 216 00:20:17,120 --> 00:20:21,160 there is GCC because it can cross compile so well and there's not all the 217 00:20:21,160 --> 00:20:26,200 licensing that's that's involved in being able to get that to go but yeah 218 00:20:26,200 --> 00:20:32,200 that I remember I remember probably soon after that I probably contacted you and 219 00:20:32,200 --> 00:20:38,080 we reported ways to system five this is great my first meeting with Tim of 220 00:20:38,080 --> 00:20:41,440 course you know in the sort of West Coast way you don't have a meeting in a 221 00:20:41,440 --> 00:20:45,680 meeting room we had a meeting in a place called the right spot which was in south 222 00:20:45,680 --> 00:20:51,040 of market which is this little divey diner and is completely great and then 223 00:20:51,040 --> 00:20:54,960 dim came in and put this thing down on the desk and it was this telephone I 224 00:20:54,960 --> 00:21:01,680 said oh a cell phone he said no it's a radio phone and it's just this guy hacks 225 00:21:01,680 --> 00:21:05,800 radio and he said well I've got this connection in they don't bill me to be 226 00:21:05,800 --> 00:21:10,080 able you want to dial anywhere in the world and it was a ham radio set that 227 00:21:10,080 --> 00:21:15,440 you could dial that can patched into Pac Bell and this was a different kind of 228 00:21:15,440 --> 00:21:20,720 guy I then got into his car and you know this we're normally people just have a 229 00:21:20,720 --> 00:21:28,120 stereo radio and so there's all the ham radio sets to be able to tie into lots 230 00:21:28,120 --> 00:21:33,440 of different networks went over to his house and he said quiet he went down to 231 00:21:33,440 --> 00:21:38,120 his basement in a place that he doesn't live anymore said this is a bootleg radio 232 00:21:38,120 --> 00:21:44,400 station we I know all of the people that are this where the different trucks are 233 00:21:44,400 --> 00:21:51,200 that go and track radio stations and he knew the frequency to use such that 234 00:21:51,200 --> 00:21:55,120 there was a heel in between him so he didn't actually interrupt the frequency 235 00:21:55,120 --> 00:21:59,760 of a real radio station but it was a pirate radio station that broadcast at 236 00:21:59,760 --> 00:22:05,200 extremely high wattage and then he said oh and here's the the PC running the 237 00:22:05,200 --> 00:22:10,000 ways servers for the emergency broadcast system right because you need to be able 238 00:22:10,000 --> 00:22:13,200 to get information to lots and lots of people if there's an earthquake and all 239 00:22:13,200 --> 00:22:17,480 that was done through voiceover radio but that doesn't make any sense so he 240 00:22:17,480 --> 00:22:20,920 had a feed of it going into a way server that could be accessed over the internet 241 00:22:20,920 --> 00:22:25,160 of course over a telebit trailblazer going to a phone line to the little 242 00:22:25,160 --> 00:22:29,720 garden and it was getting hits all the time and that was fighting that and so 243 00:22:29,720 --> 00:22:37,720 this was the sort of theory and living living this that happened in San 244 00:22:37,720 --> 00:22:41,880 Francisco when a new technology they didn't go and say oh that's the DOD it's 245 00:22:41,880 --> 00:22:46,400 horrible but the San Francisco community just as it did with PCs when said this 246 00:22:46,400 --> 00:22:50,520 is something that we could use for the people and went and did amazing things 247 00:22:50,520 --> 00:22:55,000 so where things were done with radio and Tim was instrumental in building a lot 248 00:22:55,000 --> 00:22:59,400 of radio stations is now done on the internet where that's the mechanism to 249 00:22:59,400 --> 00:23:03,560 get at large numbers of people and if you are a small-scale producer and you 250 00:23:03,560 --> 00:23:08,720 want to put something out it's the internet and that's I found that very 251 00:23:08,720 --> 00:23:27,880 much inspiring after coming out of more or less the the DARPA world we scam so 252 00:23:27,880 --> 00:23:35,280 much equipment out of till bit wiring up the third world the peace net is here 253 00:23:35,280 --> 00:23:42,280 in the Presidio oh they've moved that they've moved yeah you know me 254 00:23:42,280 --> 00:24:07,480 because a friend of mine works at PeaceNet I've been down to some site 255 00:24:07,480 --> 00:24:14,440 South market well it's actually over here it's in the Presidio or IGC you're 256 00:24:14,440 --> 00:24:19,720 gonna see the Presidio just turn into a think tank of creative high-tech this is 257 00:24:19,720 --> 00:24:24,800 going to be a university type atmosphere among people in their 20s and 30s you're 258 00:24:24,800 --> 00:24:28,920 gonna just see amazing things flower here because we've got this place we've 259 00:24:28,920 --> 00:24:35,120 got the goal here we've got a campus atmosphere in San Francisco right now 260 00:24:35,120 --> 00:24:48,200 it's fairly difficult and so yeah as it so what does the workstation do right 261 00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:52,440 we really wanted to separate out and use the PCs for what they're good for the 262 00:24:52,440 --> 00:24:55,720 web never has right it's used it basically as a dumb terminal and we're 263 00:24:55,720 --> 00:25:00,240 seeing them incarnated in horror and in hardware it's a sort of on so the 264 00:25:00,240 --> 00:25:04,760 workstations on dynamic folders find information for the user the idea is 265 00:25:04,760 --> 00:25:08,160 dynamic folders are things that find information and put them on your machine 266 00:25:08,160 --> 00:25:12,320 for you important right the web really doesn't work for a lot of users because 267 00:25:12,320 --> 00:25:17,880 it's you have to search for it and that's just not mainstream using 268 00:25:17,880 --> 00:25:23,960 information servers so that how does it do it different interface possibilities 269 00:25:23,960 --> 00:25:29,200 you can use newspaper format email format geographically books on a shelf 270 00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:33,920 there are a bunch of different ideas on user interface motifs the Netscape has 271 00:25:33,920 --> 00:25:40,840 no metaphor I sure they do they have the metaphor of an old telecom program 272 00:25:40,840 --> 00:25:44,960 advantage in remote versus local filtering right do you want to do it 273 00:25:44,960 --> 00:25:47,920 locally or do you want to do it remotely what balance do you need between those 274 00:25:47,920 --> 00:25:53,080 two the web doesn't have that stuff local caching of documents how do you go 275 00:25:53,080 --> 00:25:56,720 about doing that such that it's robust the web wasn't really designed for 276 00:25:56,720 --> 00:26:00,560 caching in line we've run into some problems time to live things that kind 277 00:26:00,560 --> 00:26:05,600 of local scoring of competing servers if your computer goes and contacts several 278 00:26:05,600 --> 00:26:12,720 then how are you going to know what your user should see budgeting the user's 279 00:26:12,720 --> 00:26:18,400 time is money the servers role probing information servers examples of 280 00:26:18,400 --> 00:26:22,920 information servers file-serving printers faxes bulletin board services 281 00:26:22,920 --> 00:26:28,000 da da da newspapers movies bulletin boards archive searching banking 282 00:26:28,000 --> 00:26:32,440 services you know all the stuff that you'd kind of imagine we've seen now and 283 00:26:32,440 --> 00:26:36,720 pizza ordering everybody really liked it you could be that that was sort of yeah 284 00:26:36,720 --> 00:26:39,340 we want to do pizza ordering right because there's a bunch of geeks at the 285 00:26:39,340 --> 00:26:42,400 original but there are library catalogs and you know all the things that you'd 286 00:26:42,400 --> 00:26:45,800 be able to do and that aren't basically there now navigating through the 287 00:26:45,800 --> 00:26:50,000 directory servers so what is the role of the directory of servers which I still 288 00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:55,000 think is an extremely important role how do you find resources what's the metadata 289 00:26:55,000 --> 00:26:58,600 behind them and we'll probably we're trying to put some of that together 290 00:26:58,600 --> 00:27:06,080 through the archive servers that rate other servers with speaking of has one 291 00:27:06,080 --> 00:27:09,760 of the gaps that I would see is okay the inner neck which is the name service for 292 00:27:09,760 --> 00:27:14,000 doesn't make any attempt to categorize that's the logical place to collect the 293 00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:17,840 information but it went public too soon they take all sorts of information on 294 00:27:17,840 --> 00:27:23,040 who you are and what your company name is nothing about what you do no it's a 295 00:27:23,040 --> 00:27:27,120 crime it's a crime I mean you know I have to do is get them to say add this 296 00:27:27,120 --> 00:27:30,940 little thing to your template driving it and making it part of the 297 00:27:30,940 --> 00:27:34,640 infrastructure we've basically got a very thin piece of infrastructure out 298 00:27:34,640 --> 00:27:39,720 there yeah well you know there's time so role of editors right how do you use 299 00:27:39,720 --> 00:27:45,400 both human editors and computer editors right that's the the wave that will 300 00:27:45,400 --> 00:27:50,280 happen then markets versus hierarchies using Silicon Valley so the idea of what 301 00:27:50,280 --> 00:27:54,480 do you use Silicon Valley for and so that's why you know basically the things 302 00:27:54,480 --> 00:27:57,720 that have come about you know work really well here that they don't work in 303 00:27:57,720 --> 00:28:03,080 Europe or in the East Coast so how would you go about using Silicon Valley how 304 00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:09,720 server companies can make money the protocols role so here's how why do you 305 00:28:09,720 --> 00:28:13,120 need a protocol and then there are different pieces why open protocols 306 00:28:13,120 --> 00:28:18,840 for both wider acceptance hardware independence protecting the users 307 00:28:18,840 --> 00:28:26,160 privacy and including in that Steve Jobs way why ways is going to change the 308 00:28:26,160 --> 00:28:30,240 world turned out to not be ways turned out to be gopher and then web but the 309 00:28:30,240 --> 00:28:35,080 basic structure I think is still in place and it didn't come from me none of 310 00:28:35,080 --> 00:28:43,720 the stuff is new by me you synthesize related projects there are related 311 00:28:43,720 --> 00:28:46,720 documents that all sorts of really interesting documents from that time 312 00:28:46,720 --> 00:28:51,360 catalyzing a market for wider information servers that was the one of 313 00:28:51,360 --> 00:28:55,640 the original blurs that came out in 88 that was the pitch to thinking machines 314 00:28:55,640 --> 00:29:01,320 we need we need to catalyze a market so people making money to for these 315 00:29:01,320 --> 00:29:07,000 information servers wonder if I could find that how to do searching on you 316 00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:12,120 know supercomputers that now become PCs so copy serve many tell 16,000 317 00:29:12,120 --> 00:29:17,040 information services phenomenal success netlib the Switzerland system the only 318 00:29:17,040 --> 00:29:20,200 thing I've got for the web is Switzerland system still assessing this 319 00:29:20,200 --> 00:29:28,760 system that was all I knew in at that time Switzerland system still assessing 320 00:29:28,760 --> 00:29:37,840 this system Lotus information brokerage companies and hypertext so to what was 321 00:29:37,840 --> 00:29:42,480 going on in the Xanadu world and the different hypertext systems that were 322 00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:49,520 all bouncing around help systems and the like so this was after I got to Apple 323 00:29:49,520 --> 00:29:58,560 and pulled together all the companies yeah kind of fun did Tim see this 324 00:29:58,560 --> 00:30:05,560 so well yeah no it went out with every ways distribution it just yes you know 325 00:30:05,560 --> 00:30:08,520 there's this there was a few things that I thought were important to put in 326 00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:13,240 every ways distribution one was the ethics of digital librarianship now that 327 00:30:13,240 --> 00:30:17,280 lots of people are becoming librarians and they're seeing usage logs how 328 00:30:17,280 --> 00:30:24,040 should they ethically deal with that responsibility there is proposals for 329 00:30:24,040 --> 00:30:30,240 the payment structures the URL structures and so the idea behind what 330 00:30:30,240 --> 00:30:34,280 ways was about and that just went out with the yeah I recall there's an awful 331 00:30:34,280 --> 00:30:37,520 lot of stuff in the ways distribution much in the same there's an awful lot of 332 00:30:37,520 --> 00:30:47,960 stuff in the emacs distribution so that I think you might find fun just you know 333 00:30:47,960 --> 00:30:51,680 when you're driving around or you know on a bus or something I think you might 334 00:30:51,680 --> 00:30:59,240 find it fun it's it's interesting to see how you know it's true people thought 335 00:30:59,240 --> 00:31:04,720 through all of this so clearly decades ago well I mean other than other than 336 00:31:04,720 --> 00:31:13,000 Nelson who really does so in such a vacuum yeah oh yeah I've got this 337 00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:19,120 wonderful signed copy of computer lip from you know it's just so ancient book 338 00:31:19,120 --> 00:31:24,140 with just all the hand scrolls Ted Nelson you know he wrote to me when they 339 00:31:24,140 --> 00:31:30,440 night announced the the archive he said oh another piece of Xanadu being done 340 00:31:30,440 --> 00:31:35,320 but you know in this sort of lamenting way and I said of course Ted we're just 341 00:31:35,320 --> 00:31:41,160 fulfilling all of the things that you went and suggested so many years ago so 342 00:31:41,160 --> 00:31:53,840 should be no surprise so that I think would probably be in terms of early 343 00:31:53,840 --> 00:31:57,400 stuff that might be interesting or useful to you and you say you did do a 344 00:31:57,400 --> 00:32:01,680 history of some sort or I've got different history files that most of them 345 00:32:01,680 --> 00:32:14,920 are home okay yeah but a history of ways no no if you don't really just the 346 00:32:14,920 --> 00:32:21,160 different segments like the Apple segment different company selling it to 347 00:32:21,160 --> 00:32:32,280 AOL integrating we're all the same building it's right yeah they moved into 348 00:32:32,280 --> 00:32:38,320 the Waze building yeah he came over here he's giving us some hints on how to do 349 00:32:38,320 --> 00:32:43,240 the crawler for just for your video you might want to just you know there's the 350 00:32:43,240 --> 00:32:46,440 robot and they're sort of going and archiving the web which I think is 351 00:32:46,440 --> 00:32:50,640 somewhat interesting towards your web history it's a different form you're 352 00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:55,120 doing an anecdote history the idea is to be able to collect the source materials 353 00:32:55,120 --> 00:32:59,560 so that historians and scholars will be able to do a different kind of job than 354 00:32:59,560 --> 00:33:03,840 what you're doing no no but you realize that they should be interconnected in 355 00:33:03,840 --> 00:33:09,480 other words ideally the anecdotal history like ours has links that rich 356 00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:13,800 links that lead you to all the source material I mean it's just another view 357 00:33:13,800 --> 00:33:35,920 of the source material basically basically a Sun machine donated by Sun 358 00:33:35,920 --> 00:33:45,040 that's basically connects to several hundred web servers at any particular 359 00:33:45,040 --> 00:33:49,760 time gets a page waits five seconds get another page and just goes through all 360 00:33:49,760 --> 00:33:55,160 of the websites and it's an ultra just running underneath somebody's desk that's 361 00:33:55,160 --> 00:34:01,720 able to basically keep a t1 busy sucking about a million pages a day the ultimate 362 00:34:01,720 --> 00:34:08,200 robot that's well it's just like Alta Vista or a web crawler but we're trying 363 00:34:08,200 --> 00:34:12,160 to get everything including all of the images everything so you can recreate 364 00:34:12,160 --> 00:34:16,120 the web what way it was at any particular time so you can dial the way 365 00:34:16,120 --> 00:34:20,640 back machine and experience what the web looked like not but with all the CGI 366 00:34:20,640 --> 00:34:25,960 scripts and there's certain Java things but you won't be able to do that but 367 00:34:25,960 --> 00:34:33,160 you'll be able to try to use the web the way it was or find a copy of record or 368 00:34:33,160 --> 00:34:37,600 what did a particular person say at a particular time or how can you cite a 369 00:34:37,600 --> 00:34:43,440 document if the documents go away every 44 days the mean life of a document on 370 00:34:43,440 --> 00:34:47,960 the World Wide Web is 44 really that's what they say it based on one study we 371 00:34:47,960 --> 00:34:51,880 don't have our own numbers on that yet but it seems to be about right but if 372 00:34:51,880 --> 00:34:56,280 you're not picking up a lot of CGI stuff I mean most virtual documents will not 373 00:34:56,280 --> 00:35:02,680 happen then right we'll get whatever you could get to at that time but we don't 374 00:35:02,680 --> 00:35:06,720 know how to go and type anything right into a search string right so anything 375 00:35:06,720 --> 00:35:10,280 that's in a database behind we cannot get so you're grabbing all this stuff 376 00:35:10,280 --> 00:35:15,800 down the pipe what kind of bandwidth you have here t1 and we're we'll be bumping 377 00:35:15,800 --> 00:35:20,900 that up but that that's enough to give you a million pages a day and if there 378 00:35:20,900 --> 00:35:25,120 are 50 to 100 million pages and that's how long it'll take and once we get 379 00:35:25,120 --> 00:35:30,080 better at it we'll run it at the San Diego supercomputer site and download 380 00:35:30,080 --> 00:35:35,640 quicker so I'll show you with the storage mechanism 381 00:35:35,640 --> 00:35:48,640 oh so there is putting a tape away you see where you are in the process now 382 00:35:48,640 --> 00:35:57,240 we've gathered 600 gigabytes of material and it's sitting on this robot and a 383 00:35:57,240 --> 00:36:04,560 robot that's down in San Diego and you do have a backup of currently we've got 384 00:36:04,560 --> 00:36:09,520 only one copy though you know of course the you know as we're getting going more 385 00:36:09,520 --> 00:36:17,040 and more when I stand by this thing more and more of this thing will be backed up 386 00:36:17,040 --> 00:36:22,760 in multiple places for faults in terms of technology but also political faults 387 00:36:22,760 --> 00:36:29,400 the library of Alexandria was burned so we need to be able to preserve our 388 00:36:29,400 --> 00:36:35,640 digital history in multiple places under different regimes so basically it since 389 00:36:35,640 --> 00:36:39,520 these things require attending every ten years you've got to move it forward to 390 00:36:39,520 --> 00:36:47,000 the next generation of technology or you it dies so you need an organization to 391 00:36:47,000 --> 00:36:50,760 keep it going and I will endow the organization with enough money to keep 392 00:36:50,760 --> 00:36:55,520 the bits alive forever so any bits that are donated to the internet archive I 393 00:36:55,520 --> 00:37:03,640 will make sure has the money for every ten years will keep it alive and when 394 00:37:03,640 --> 00:37:06,880 it comes time to work with the National Archives of the Library of Congress so 395 00:37:06,880 --> 00:37:12,880 they can deal with terabytes and then we will provide a copy to them but right 396 00:37:12,880 --> 00:37:16,760 now there are no institutions that are doing large-scale digital collections 397 00:37:16,760 --> 00:37:22,800 and so we're I think the first that is starting to build the core collection 398 00:37:22,800 --> 00:37:29,600 that can become a digital library at least of this type of material and this 399 00:37:29,600 --> 00:37:36,400 is all it takes this is a another Sun computer donated by Sun 20 gigabytes of 400 00:37:36,400 --> 00:37:43,440 hard drive space that's used as a cache so a bat machine in the other room 401 00:37:43,440 --> 00:37:49,480 gathers web pages and puts them in a hundred megabyte chunk transfers it to 402 00:37:49,480 --> 00:37:54,080 this set of disks and after they've been here for a while they basically get 403 00:37:54,080 --> 00:38:00,480 transferred to tape and that way we can cost-effectively store the whole net 404 00:38:00,480 --> 00:38:07,720 which is estimated between one and ten terabytes and that's well and growing at 405 00:38:07,720 --> 00:38:14,640 what rate we don't know we don't know um you know there is estimates that it's 406 00:38:14,640 --> 00:38:22,340 doubling every seven months but frankly we just don't know so we have not 407 00:38:22,340 --> 00:38:28,200 finished the first complete crawl yet but it's getting there 408 00:38:29,200 --> 00:38:37,160 some donations of all the HTML from early 1996 and we'll get some donations 409 00:38:37,160 --> 00:38:42,240 from what one of the crawlers open text had from 1995 that'll be the earliest 410 00:38:42,240 --> 00:38:48,040 web we have our crawler has just been running for a couple weeks but it 411 00:38:48,040 --> 00:38:53,360 gathers about 10 gigabytes a day so it seems like a fair amount but there's a 412 00:38:53,360 --> 00:39:02,520 lot to go but you're sure that that's above the rate of increase yeah no at 413 00:39:02,520 --> 00:39:07,120 some point everybody's gonna have their camcorders on the internet and at that 414 00:39:07,120 --> 00:39:15,080 point we can't keep up but right now we think we can be comprehensive so we had 415 00:39:15,080 --> 00:39:22,480 a request for some of 1992 net news and so we've been and that we've got from 416 00:39:22,480 --> 00:39:28,720 CD-ROMs on our robot and so people come in through FTP contact this machine if 417 00:39:28,720 --> 00:39:32,200 it asks for a file that's not on disk it's on tape then it takes it from tape 418 00:39:32,200 --> 00:39:37,840 puts back on disk and then serves it out and we're building services to be able 419 00:39:37,840 --> 00:39:42,520 to data mine this we don't think that this is a crypt or a time capsule it's 420 00:39:42,520 --> 00:39:49,200 to create new types of services that if you had the whole net in a place where 421 00:39:49,200 --> 00:39:54,520 you could do active manipulation of it to find trends and new ideas in it or 422 00:39:54,520 --> 00:39:59,880 changes over time then you can be a smarter organization and that's what 423 00:39:59,880 --> 00:40:02,440 we're trying to build 424 00:40:02,440 --> 00:40:25,160 I don't know, through the smoke glass. Oh yeah. So somebody requested a file. 425 00:40:25,160 --> 00:40:35,000 I like this thing. It gives a visceral notion how big the net is and there's 426 00:40:35,000 --> 00:40:39,360 something working. Although the fact that this thing is smaller than most 427 00:40:39,360 --> 00:40:45,360 refrigerators is also an amazing feat itself. And it can store two terabytes 428 00:40:45,360 --> 00:40:52,680 which is about one-tenth of the text in the Library of Congress is in this box. 429 00:40:52,680 --> 00:40:57,200 Ten of these. Ten of these and you have the text in all of the books of the 430 00:40:57,200 --> 00:41:04,200 Library of Congress. So something very big has happened in the sense that 431 00:41:04,200 --> 00:41:12,760 computers now are able to manipulate all published material inexpensively in a 432 00:41:12,760 --> 00:41:18,960 way that kind of basically put computers in the library and help where you can't 433 00:41:18,960 --> 00:41:23,320 read every book. Your computer can to go and figure out what it is you should be 434 00:41:23,320 --> 00:41:27,760 reading next and find this thing just amazing and exciting. You'll be able to 435 00:41:27,760 --> 00:41:32,520 pull off new services that never been possible before. But do you think though 436 00:41:32,520 --> 00:41:36,720 that I mean we're at a funny juncture where the technology of course this can 437 00:41:36,720 --> 00:41:41,920 grapple with all paper material. Ten of these would take in a good portion of 438 00:41:41,920 --> 00:41:45,800 what people want but as you say as soon as everyone has their camcorder on the 439 00:41:45,800 --> 00:41:50,280 net we were right at that funny threshold before the flood of digital 440 00:41:50,280 --> 00:41:55,760 information right? Before richer media types and large part the net the 441 00:41:55,760 --> 00:42:01,360 internet is got such small files because the internet is so slow. Which will keep it 442 00:42:01,360 --> 00:42:07,880 honest for a while. For a little while but the flood bandwidth will come whether 443 00:42:07,880 --> 00:42:12,040 from cable through wireless through phone companies through every which way 444 00:42:12,040 --> 00:42:19,080 bandwidth will come. But text everybody can only be typing all the time and that 445 00:42:19,080 --> 00:42:23,720 is small. Oh yeah text is a fractional portion of it. And it's a very dense 446 00:42:23,720 --> 00:42:29,560 representation of knowledge so you can manipulate it. Computers can this will be 447 00:42:29,560 --> 00:42:40,920 smaller and faster. Isn't it neat? Yeah both CERN and NCSA they have. Where these things used to just be in big 448 00:42:40,920 --> 00:42:46,080 shops supercomputers cost hundreds that millions of dollars. Now you can do it in 449 00:42:46,080 --> 00:42:53,120 a little house in the prairie here in the Presidio. You know where it took a 450 00:42:53,120 --> 00:42:57,000 hundred and forty million to go and build a library and new library in San 451 00:42:57,000 --> 00:43:07,560 Francisco. How many times could you get that? It would take a couple of these. 452 00:43:07,560 --> 00:43:12,240 So it's a good size library. Turns out the Library of Congress isn't that much 453 00:43:12,240 --> 00:43:18,080 larger than the big libraries in terms of the number of volumes. Big 454 00:43:18,080 --> 00:43:23,960 libraries are five six million books. Library of Congress is 20 million. It 455 00:43:23,960 --> 00:43:41,680 just basically paper doesn't scale. But computers do. It's fun. They had a Cray 456 00:43:41,680 --> 00:43:45,960 which they finally got rid of when they switched to linked workstations virtual 457 00:43:45,960 --> 00:43:52,280 mainframes. The Cray spent its last days as a tape server. All it was doing 458 00:43:52,280 --> 00:43:59,860 serving tapes from the big underground library. It cost $500. That was the fastest 459 00:43:59,860 --> 00:44:06,040 computer in the world ten years ago. Cost $500 and it's not worth turning on. So 460 00:44:06,040 --> 00:44:12,080 just imagine what terabytes are going to mean to our kids. You know it's like dad 461 00:44:12,080 --> 00:44:27,800 that's just a terabyte. Hopefully we actually have some some of the old stuff 462 00:44:27,800 --> 00:44:33,920 to be able to put on it. I love that statement. I wonder which one's 463 00:44:33,920 --> 00:44:40,340 going to be true. If it's not digital it won't it won't be saved. It's one 464 00:44:40,340 --> 00:44:44,920 statement and I read another one. If it's digital it won't be saved. Well 465 00:44:44,920 --> 00:44:52,680 but without people doing what you're doing clearly the just lost early nets 466 00:44:52,680 --> 00:45:04,960 lost. Yeah there's a there's an advantage right. You could reuse the tapes. Why 467 00:45:04,960 --> 00:45:08,440 would you why would you want to keep it? Well when we go into space we can 468 00:45:08,440 --> 00:45:13,560 recapture some of them from there. Yes we'll have to hurry though right. Have to 469 00:45:13,560 --> 00:45:16,000 go a little faster than the speed of light to be able to catch up with the 470 00:45:16,000 --> 00:45:20,800 old I Love Lucy's. I Love Lucy was archived but the early Tonight Show all 471 00:45:20,800 --> 00:45:26,080 gone and you know you say ah good riddance but Ted Turner bought the early 472 00:45:26,080 --> 00:45:30,520 archive a bunch of early TV programs for one billion dollars recently I've heard. 473 00:45:30,520 --> 00:45:35,480 So there's some value in the stuff and he's been doing very well by by using it 474 00:45:35,480 --> 00:45:41,120 but also the early stuff is got people's dreams. The early people that sort of say 475 00:45:41,120 --> 00:45:45,320 you know the early people in the web like you doing your dinosaur exhibit 476 00:45:45,320 --> 00:45:50,200 you've got this ability to be able to do something new and different and at some 477 00:45:50,200 --> 00:45:53,720 point people will just say oh well you know I can't do that and they'll just 478 00:45:53,720 --> 00:45:58,320 sort of focus in on all it can do but in the beginning you have just amazing 479 00:45:58,320 --> 00:46:01,880 things so I always kept the early logs of ways I thought those would be the 480 00:46:01,880 --> 00:46:07,400 most valuable things is one of the questions that people ask the net and so 481 00:46:07,400 --> 00:46:12,920 I kept all of those logs. Oh you have those. Oh yeah of just what do people look for 482 00:46:12,920 --> 00:46:18,880 what are people dreaming that the technology can finally answer and right 483 00:46:18,880 --> 00:46:23,440 now already the web is sort of you know stagnated you know people's idea of it 484 00:46:23,440 --> 00:46:27,960 is really focused down to sort of the stuff that the technicians have given 485 00:46:27,960 --> 00:46:32,720 but it's the early dreams that is what we should be trying to live up to and so 486 00:46:32,720 --> 00:46:36,360 trying to keep some of that alive. So that was an exciting period when you 487 00:46:36,360 --> 00:46:41,480 was it any Newton and the apple for you with ways when did this when did you 488 00:46:41,480 --> 00:46:46,880 decide this is gonna be my project rather than just a random thought? 1988 489 00:46:46,880 --> 00:46:52,400 when I decided what context were you in the bath driving in the car? It wasn't a 490 00:46:52,400 --> 00:46:56,680 Eureka. The question I had was how do you find a 491 00:46:56,680 --> 00:47:01,880 field supercomputers basically in by 1988 it looked like we'd come up with 492 00:47:01,880 --> 00:47:06,440 most of the reasonable ideas and so it took started ten years at least from my 493 00:47:06,440 --> 00:47:10,120 point of view for the phase that I'm usually involved in. I wanted to find a 494 00:47:10,120 --> 00:47:15,400 field that would have interesting problems to solve for 25 years because I 495 00:47:15,400 --> 00:47:19,920 didn't want to have to change fields again and the only one I could come up 496 00:47:19,920 --> 00:47:26,800 with was helping answer tough questions for people. And what's my bank balance? 497 00:47:26,800 --> 00:47:30,720 Little computers will do that but answering the hard questions should I go 498 00:47:30,720 --> 00:47:35,440 back to graduate school? Should I marry this woman? What book should I read next? 499 00:47:35,440 --> 00:47:40,600 Da-da-da-da-da. Hard questions want to be able to help make computers answer those 500 00:47:40,600 --> 00:47:46,000 that was the goal that I started with and Waze was the first step which was 501 00:47:46,000 --> 00:47:50,120 making open protocols work. Turned out to not be the Waze protocols but 502 00:47:50,120 --> 00:47:57,000 that's fine we won anyway and thanks large part to Tim Berners-Lee. Then so 503 00:47:57,000 --> 00:48:01,400 the open protocols were necessary then is building an infrastructure for 504 00:48:01,400 --> 00:48:06,960 collection of the content and the usage of the information. That's step two 505 00:48:06,960 --> 00:48:12,200 that's what we're involved in now. Step three is to help answer the hard 506 00:48:12,200 --> 00:48:16,600 questions. Tracking people's histories so you can learn from other people's 507 00:48:16,600 --> 00:48:22,320 mistakes or other people's examples and basically by having computer records of 508 00:48:22,320 --> 00:48:28,000 what's going on and how other people won and lost, how their careers turned and 509 00:48:28,000 --> 00:48:31,960 twisted, what worked for people, what didn't. Hopefully we're building a 510 00:48:31,960 --> 00:48:38,200 resource that can play some of the augment the role of mentor or priest in 511 00:48:38,200 --> 00:48:44,000 small towns to answer the hard questions. We're just in phase two so I'm just 512 00:48:44,000 --> 00:48:47,840 surprised that we're in the end of 1996 and this is as far as we are. We haven't 513 00:48:47,840 --> 00:48:52,080 got a long way to go. The open protocols worked but unfortunately we screwed up 514 00:48:52,080 --> 00:48:57,560 some of the distributed nature of the net and so we're trying to do step 515 00:48:57,560 --> 00:49:03,640 number two here. Then I'm gonna move on before I'm you know when I'm 40 then I'll 516 00:49:03,640 --> 00:49:12,840 start something else. Then what are you gonna do? You don't want to know.